What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?

This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

In the sublimest flights of the soul, rectitude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.